Service Performance needs more than care

Prefer to listen?

Recently ServiceQ had their team conference, and we were inspired at an individual and team level by Dan Collins. Dan is an Olympic medal winner and four-time Olympian who is brilliant at helping people develop a winning team and culture. You can check him out here. https://dancollins.com.au/ 

During the day, we wrestled with the idea that performance is our currency of work. Two of the questions we asked each other around the table were, ‘Can we do better?’ and ‘Can we promise, as a high performing team, to call each other out when we need to do better?’ 

It was a fabulous, intense, and a critically important conversation. While participating and observing, I had a major realisation: 

Giving it my all, which relates to my character, is not enough for excellent performance. 

Having the capability to do the job well is just as important to performance. 

The reason this was a major realisation for me – and for the team – is that we are such a caring, nurturing bunch and have built a culture of ‘giving it our all’. We’re deeply committed to the service of our clients and the people we serve. But as a high-performing team, that’s not enough.  

Think about this concept in the context of your service culture and how your people give customer service. Are you asking them to simply give their all, or are you also evaluating their performance on their capability and the skills they have to do their absolute best? 

Focusing on how little or how much service professionals care may not shift the dial in your service performance. It’s equally important to ask whether people have the capability, the skills, the competency to get the job done and do it best.